December 30, 2004

The first five AUGI CAD Camps have been announced. If you are located near Houston, Texas; Lansing, Michigan; Seattle, Washington; Chicago, Illinois; or Dallas, Texas, you may want to look into these one-day events at the CAD Camp website.

December 24, 2004

I have posted another example of a schedule that "clusters" items by room in the Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2005 Discussion Group. In this example, the items being scheduled are Multi-View Blocks representing electrical devices. I created a new Multi-View Block whose view block consists entirely of non-plotting graphics to form the "header rows". The devices in each room, as well as the header row Multi-View Blocks, all have an object-based Property Set Definition attached that includes a location property, so that the room name and number can be read in from the space.

As before, the schedule is sorted first by the room number and then by the ScheduleSortingOrder property, which this time is style-based, in the AllStyles Property Set Definition. That way the sorting number needs only to be assigned once to each Multi-View Block definition and the data is there for all instances. The header row blocks are again assigned a sorting order of 1. Power devices are assigned numbers starting with 11, switches start at 21 and teledata items start at 41. This groups like items together and allows for adding additional devices of a given type later. Obviously, if you were implementing this in the "real world", you would want to work out all the devices you would ever want to schedule, determine the order in which you would want to list them and assign sorting order numbers accordingly.I made use of a formula property to give the header rows the MTEXT new line code to increase their height as I suggested could be done in the unit spaces post. This property is in the AllStyles Property Set Defintion. I did find that simply returning a value of "\P" in the formula did not work - I added a space character before and after new line code and it worked fine: " \P ".For this schedule, listing each device separately was not desired, so a quantity column was added. I did not anticipate that the header rows would also get a quantity, and since that column is generated by the program, I can not suppress these. I am not happy with that, and, if this were not just a sample file, I would probably consider making the room number column visible and removing the header rows altogether.

Note also that for this sample, all I listed was the quantity and the Multi-View Block name. Additional properties could be added as columns so long as all devices of the same type display the same information, to keep them all on one line. If you do not want to use the Multi-View Block name as the device name, you can set up a manual property in the AllStyles Property Set Definition to hold the "display name" for each device. Substitute that property for the AllStyles:StyleName reference in the DeviceNameSchedule property in the BlockObjects Property Set Definition to get the manual property to display instead of the block name.

December 22, 2004

In response to a request in the Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2005 Discussion Group, I posted a sample Property Set Defintion and Schedule Table Style that clusters all of the spaces within an individual unit together, in a user-set order, and, rather than repeat the unit number for each space, includes a "header row" that lists the unit name and number in the room name column. See the posts in the thread for more detailed information on the requirements.The clustering and ordering within each cluster is achieved by including two hidden columns in the Schedule Table Style. The first sort is done on the RoomNumber property, and the second sort is done on the OrderWithinUnit property. Both are manual properties that the user needs to fill in. The OrderWithinUnit property is also used to identify the space that forms the "header row" - it must always be set to 1. A formula property concatenates the unit room name and room number for the "header row" while passing through just the room name for the other spaces. Formula properties are used to process automatic properties in the table, clearing the values on the header row and passing through the values for the individual spaces within each unit. The remarks manual property is scheduled directly.The sample also demonstrates that the header row can be made visually distinct by entering the MTEXT code "\P" [without the quotes] to force a new line, increasing the height of the header rows. The "\P" code will work even if it is in a hidden column, which might be preferable if it was desired to include actual remarks in the "header row". By using a formula property that returns a RESULT of "\P" if the OrderWithinUnit property is 1 and "" otherwise, adding that property to the schedule and hiding that column, you could prevent accidental erasure of the code on the "header row".

Richard Binning has posted a short tutorial on how to set up quick access to "important" folders inside AutoCAD/ADT: Beside the Cursor...: Speeding up Access to Frequently Used Folders. I use this technique to speed access to both to critical "permanent" folders as well as to provide easy access to key folders for the projects on which I am currently working. If you are not familiar with this, check out his tutorial.

December 21, 2004

I just posted a sample file in response to a request for help in the Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2005 Discussion Group, showing how a formula property can be used to return the value of one property - usually one of the automatic ones, but in this case a style-based manual property - unless an override value has been entered into a separate manual property, in which case the manual property is returned.You would then use the formula property in your schedule [or tag], and the result displayed will be, in this case, the style-based manual property if the object-based override property is left at its default value, a null string. If the override property is not a null string, the override string is returned. The sample file includes a schedule table that displays all of the property data attached so you can see the effects of various combinations.If you want to override a numeric value with another numeric value, I would suggest making the default value for the override property the number zero --> 0

December 16, 2004

I have been using the EXPORTTOAUTOCAD2000 command in ADT 2004 quite a lot in the past week and have made an "interesting" discovery. If the default plot style type, as set on the Plotting tab of the Options dialog, is not the same as the plot style type of the drawing you are exporting back to AutoCAD 2000, the plot style type of the exported drawing will be the type specified as your default in Options, NOT the type of the source drawing file. I was not expecting this behavior - I only noticed it while checking something else in an exported file.

In the Page Setup dialog, the plot style file specified in the source file remains, but is noted as "missing". At least the default plot style file is not substituted, which would leave anyone opening the exported file completely unaware that a change had been made.

I now have a profile set up that is similar to the STB default one I generally use, but which has CTB as the default plot style type, for occasions where I need to export CTB files.I am happy to report that ADT 2005 does not change the plot style type of a file being exported to AutoCAD 2000, even if the default plot style type is different from the plot style type of the drawing being exported. This is yet another reason to upgrade, or to install ADT2005 from that disk in the box on the shelf.

December 11, 2004

Paul Aubin, famous author and one of the instructors at Autodesk University, has set up a web-based tool catalog that features content from his AU courses. You can access this by clicking the Add Content icon in Content Browser and choosing to add an existing catalog. Click on the Browse... button and type in the following URL as the location:
http://www.paulaubin.com/Public/AU_2004.atc . You can read more about this catalog in the Didn't get a chance to show this at AU thread in the Autodesk Archtitectural Desktop 2005 Discussion Group. I found the AU Logo Curtain Wall Style particularly interesting, and managed to reverse engineer it, with a little help from Paul.Understanding the tool palettes is a must for anyone using Autodesk Architectural Desktop 2004 or 2005, as much of the out-of-the-box content is organized around having the typical ADT user view the tool palettes as the "one stop shopping" location for content. Paul's class provided a good overview of the basics and his handout went into even greater detail. If you get the chance to attend a future Autodesk University, you can not go wrong taking any course offered by Paul.

December 06, 2004

I returned home yesterday, after an exhilarating week of Autodesk University and an extended weekend stay in Las Vegas. I enjoyed the opportunity to meet with and learn from many with whom I otherwise only have contact in the Autodesk Architectural Desktop Discussion Groups.

My only minor disappointment was the lack of intermediate to advanced level courses. I took a few classes that dealt with customizations involving programming that were a bit over my head, but most of the ADT classes were targeted primarily at the novice user. I fully understand the need to appeal to as broad an audience as possible - if insufficient numbers sign up for a class, it may be cancelled or, at the least, not be considered for the following year - but if return visits to Autodesk University are to be encouraged, there need to be courses that will engage the intermediate to advanced user, too.

I will try to find time to post gems from the courses I took, once I get caught up at work and at home.

Other Links

About Me

I am an architect employed by EwingCole in its Philadelphia office, currently serving as the Design Technology Manager. In addition to using ADT/ACA and Revit on the job, I serve as a moderator in the AUGI Forums and formerly served as a facilitator for the Autodesk ADT/ACA Discussion Groups.